My casual impressions from DreamHack: Valencia (with some pics)

Hey guys! I have recently attended DreamHack: Valencia, I liked it so I decided to share with.

TLDR: Here are some terrible quality semidank pictures (link). Live events are cool, if you have an opportunity - attend one, it is super fun.

Introduction

This was my second DreamHack in Valencia, I also went last year, but I was not that into starcraft back then, I was barely following the scene and knew/heard of like third of the participating players. I came back to Starcraft with the release of LotV, started playing actively and have followed almost every big event and a lot of smaller tourneys since then. So this time I came prepared and much more enthusiastic about the whole thing. Just so you know I'm a plat 1 shitter and my game knowledge is not that great. I enjoy interesting personalities and good sportsmanship. I love WCS changes and foreign scene so far, even tho I enjoy Korean starcraft too.

The venue and organisation

DreamHack is a pretty big event, the hall with all the gaming action is huuuuge. There is a number of stages: Main stage (hots and starcraft), CSGO stage, LoL stage, HS stage. Couple of foodstands (ramen and pizza) and a lot of gaming related locations: monster energy lounge, few merchandise shops etc.

Starcraft scene and organisation is much much better than last year, I think it has to do with the fact that DH is now a WCS event, so DH stepped up their game, SC had a dedicated scene for group stages (last year it was a small projector and like 10 chairs somewhere in the furthest corner of the venue with no sound), which had commentary and all that stuff. Group stage area was visible from the seats and you could rush to cheer for a player after a win or just watch games on players monitors from there.

There also was a BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) hall, its an event that lives its own life. I went there once and I can say that there were less cool modded PCs this year. And I saw like 3(!!!) people playing Evolve. That must be pretty cool to have your entire player base in one place.

Apart from some minor stream production problems (random Smix in the semis, not switching away from observer POV couple of times etc) only problem for me was that they never showed audience, like not a single shot. I made some posters and held them up for as long as I could but not a single shot :<

Why would I want to go to a LAN, isn't stream enough?

It is an amazing experience, seeing your favorite players and personalities, having a chat with them, watching them play live is super cool. I was fanboying pretty hard so I got a LotV collectors and got some people to sign it. Had a small conversation here and there and watched the group stages and ro32 and ro16 from behind players backs. It is really interesting to watch players hang out, talk to each other and act like regular people, not just as some names in the liquipedia page. I would definitely recommend going to a live event if you have an opportunity.

Some random facts and opinions:

ShoWTimE and MarineLorD were wearing sleeveless t-shirts, showtimes' guns were definitely bigger. Harstem is pretty buff too, but he chose to wear a humble t-shirt with sleeves.

MaSa was late to the group stage, I saw him arriving to the venue after he got an autolose for his first map. He either got lost on the way or overslept because my friend saw him on the plane the day before.

ShoWTimE played some games during the group stage with his shoes off.

All the players and casters I talked to are very nice (Snute, TLO, Neeb, ShoWTimE, Drogo, puCK, Rail/Verdi, Elazer, Rotti, PiG). Casters must have been super tired after the full day of casting, but PiG and Rotti were still nice enough to sign my collectors edition!

Final day was somewhat disappointing because everyone I wanted to see in the finals (Neeb, ShoWTimE and Snute) including my favorite player (Snute) got eliminated, Neeb and Snute being eliminated by MarineLorD which was quite an upset for me. I made some posters, but the production never showed the audience for some unknown reason. And last five series of the event were 3-0s and 4-0s. So I was in a somewhat upset mood. But after the finals I tweeted this picture at Snute and he liked it. This totally made my day!

Conclusion

This post is somewhat chaotic, but if you have a chance to attend a live event, you should definitely do it. This is an amazing experience and if you love Starcraft you will greatly enjoy it.